Muslims made unwelcome as times toughen

Terrorism and economic woes pull welcome mat from under Muslims in Tennessee

Oct. 25, 2010

Daoud Abudiab reacts amid the remains of the Islamic Center of Columbia in Columbia on Feb. 11, 2008. The mosque was set on fire and had swastikas and ethnic slurs spray-painted on it. JAE S. LEE / FILE / THE TENNESSEAN

Written by

Bob Smietana

THE TENNESSEAN

Rayan Kocher, 6, and others pray at the Salahadeen Center in Nashville. Middle Tennessee has seven mosques for the region’s estimated population of 25,000 Muslims who began arriving in the area more than 30 years ago. JOHN PARTIPILO / FILE / THE TENNESSEAN

MIDDLE TENNESSEE’S MUSLIMS

An estimated 25,000 Muslims live in Middle Tennessee. Many are immigrants from Iraq, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Somalia, Sudan, Indonesia and Egypt who began moving to Middle Tennessee in the 1970s. Others are native Tennesseans who have converted to the faith. Almost all are Sunnis. They have seven local mosques:

The Islamic Center of Nashville is the largest and most diverse mosque in Nashville, with congregation members coming from across the Muslim world. Its first building was funded in part by the Yusuf Islam, the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens. The Islamic Center of Murfreesboro is a diverse international congregation and is in the process of building a new center in Rutherford County. A group of mosque opponents are suing to stop the development.

Masjid Al-Islam in Nashville is a congregation of mostly African-American converts. Some of the mosque’s founders were originally members of the National of Islam but became Sunnis in the 1970s.

The Salahadeen Center of Nashville serves mostly Kurdish immigrants.

The Al-Farooq Mosque was founded by Somali immigrants to Nashville.

The Islamic Center of Tennessee is the newest mosque and recently bought a closed movie theater in Antioch to convert into a mosque.

The Islamic Center of Columbia, which serves a small Maury County congregation, was burned to the ground in February 2008 and has since been rebuilt.

A proposed Islamic Center of Williamson County was derailed in May after a public outcry over zoning for a possible mosque site in Brentwood.

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"Not welcome."

The foot-tall, spray-painted letters appeared in January on a sign announcing the Murfreesboro mosque's new home.

Nobody paid much attention. Muslims and the site's neighbors dismissed it as the work of intolerant people with too much time on their hands.

But by June, that message had gone mainstream. Arsonists burned excavating equipment. Angry protesters marched in the street. Residents sued the county, claiming the mosque would soon become a den of terrorists.

"Not welcome." A volatile mixture lay beneath those two words, one stirred by three issues.

Some native Tennesseans aren't fond of immigrants and the possibility of Christianity losing its grip on Bible Belt culture. Each new terrorist act prompts a swell of fear and hatred toward their new neighbors. And everyone is living in the worst economic times since the Great Depression.

"They feel like in some ways there was a compact made at the founding of the country — between God and America," said Ed Stetzer, president of Southern Baptist-affiliated LifeWay Research. "That compact has been broken."

In the 1990s, drawn mostly by good jobs, immigrants flocked to Nashville and other midsize Southern cities instead of the major hubs that used to attract them.

That growth accelerated in the 2000s. From 2000 to 2008, the foreign-born population in the Nashville metropolitan area, which includes Murfreesboro and Franklin, grew from 58,539 to 107,184 — or by 83.1 percent, according to a study by the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

That's the fourth-largest percentage jump in the nation.

Still, fewer than 1 percent of Tennesseans identify themselves as Muslim. Among them are about 7,000 Kurds who fled persecution in Iraq and were resettled by the federal government in Middle Tennessee. Others, like many of the leaders of local mosques, came to study at Vanderbilt University or Middle Tennessee State University — the biggest jump in international students at MTSU last year came from Saudi Arabia.

The mere presence of Muslims in Middle Tennessee didn't initially spawn strife. It took the next two ingredients — the Muslim-executed terrorist attacks of 9/11 and tough economic times.

Fear of change, terrorism

The Rev. Bryan Brooks of Blackman United Methodist Church in Murfreesboro said his congregation wants to welcome their Muslim neighbors. But they have their own issues, he said.

"One of my congregation members told me a lot of things you grew up trusting — if you do right, if you treat people right, then everything will work out," he said. "But lately it hasn't worked that way. People who work hard lose their jobs. People who try to treat others well have bad things happen to them."

Even though he has met with the imam at the local Islamic center and attended a forum on religious freedom, Brooks said it's tough to dispel the driving forces behind his congregation's unease — economic fears and perception the community is changing.

But for Murfreesboro mosque opponent Scott Kozimor, those aren't the issues. He's more worried about national security. The federal government and local officials can't keep his five children safe, he said.

His view is reinforced by the U.S. war on terror. He follows news reports about individual terrorist activity in the U.S., including the Fort Hood, Texas, shootings last year and failed Times Square car bomb in the spring.

"You say we are intolerant and our views are tainted," Kozimor said. "Well, guess what? All you have to do is read the news. It's your terrorist buddies that are tainting all of our views."

Downturn hurts society

Benjamin Friedman, an economist at Harvard University, predicted in 2005 that an economic downturn in the U.S. could have dire consequences for society.

"History suggests that the quality of our democracy — more fundamentally, the moral character of American society — would be at risk if we experienced a many-year downturn," he wrote in an Atlantic essay titled "Meltdown: A Case Study."

Good economic times make for good neighbors. Bad times create bad neighbors.

Today, Friedman has seen some of his fears come true. He recently wrote in a Yale Divinity School magazine that societies lose their democratic values when most citizens don't feel they're making economic gains.

In a poll of more than 600 Tennesseans released this month by MTSU, 32 percent supported the idea that Muslims should have to register their whereabouts with the federal government.

Americans are living in the midst of a historic economic downturn that shows few signs of turning around. Unemployment in Rutherford County is at 8.6 percent — down from earlier in the year when it was more than 10 percent, but still more than twice as high as in 2006. Statewide unemployment hovers between 9 and 10 percent.

When revenue for state and local budgets shrinks, immigrants become a target — especially their perceived toll on education and health-care systems. And non-Christian immigrants often bear the brunt, said Katharine Donato, chairwoman of the sociology department at Vanderbilt.

In past economic slumps, Chinese immigrants were considered un-American because they were not Christians, while Catholics were ostracized for being the wrong kind of Christians.

Today, Muslims are seen as part of the problem.

But most people who dislike Muslims don't describe their reasons so eloquently, or maybe don't even understand the reasons. Retired Murfreesboro resident Jerry Paschal does it in one sentence: "They don't want to be us."

He fears Mufreesboro might become another Dearborn, Mich. His sister lives in that city, which has the highest percentage of Arab-Americans in the country. While most are Christians, many are Muslims. Arabic writing on shop signs is common.

"Tennessee is a nice place," Paschal said. "I don't know how long it will stay nice."